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...Sure, kids may not want to see this stuff at their favorite toy store. But in this economy, Toys "R" Us is betting that Mom and Dad do. On Wednesday, Toys "R" Us will announce the opening in 260 of its 585 stores a new convenience section called the "R" Market, which will offer an assortment of consumables and household items such as cereal, macaroni and cheese, canned food, granola bars, cleaning supplies, paper goods, hand soap, juice boxes and nonperishable milk. The "R" Markets will also offer a wider variety of diapers, baby food and other infant supplies...
...These new stores-within-a-store aren't a total snore for the toddler set. "R" Markets will also sell decidedly nonessential, kid-friendly products like Pez dispensers, gumball machines and a host of other candy brands that will keep dentists employed for a millennium. Plus, most products have a kid-friendly feel - Elmo and Grover on the juice boxes, food packaged as "P'Sghettti Loops," toddler toothbrushes and such. Still, the intent of the "R" Market is clear. With nondiscretionary products like toys more vulnerable to consumer-spending swings, Toys "R" Us needs to give parents more reasons...
...Storch is quick to point out that while the economy has heightened the urgency of the "R" Market initiative, the company has been preparing for its launch for the past few years. He emphasizes that Toys "R" Us isn't shifting its focus from the fun stuff. The percentage of square footage dedicated to the "R" Markets will be in the "single digits," according to Storch. In the Phillipsburg Toys "R" Us, for example, manager Mark Schantz estimated that the "R" Market took up just 1,300 of the store's 30,000 square feet - that's just 4.3%. Storch...
...many retail analysts, the Toys "R" Us tweak makes a ton of sense. After all, if Wal-Mart and the Targets of the world can sell toys, why shouldn't Toys "R" Us sell food and paper towels? "Sometimes the fence swings both ways," says Marshall Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group. Consumers are willing to pay for convenience, say the experts, especially when grabbing items that they really need. "Is it a good idea? It's the only idea," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail consultancy and investment bank. "Mothers are going to the store...
...Over the past few weeks, Toys "R" Us has been quietly testing the "R" Market in select stores across the country. Sales "are running ahead of where we expected," says Storch. However, customers at the Toys "R" Us in Phillipsburg, a town that sits on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border, were for the most part unimpressed. Over the course of two hours on a Friday afternoon, only a handful of customers even wandered over to the "R" Market, which had been open for about two weeks. Granted, the store wasn't exactly packed in the toy aisles either...